Just sign up for Jott, a free service that turns what you say into text then sends it to you via e-mail. Jott turns your phone into a quick voice dictation machine.

When you sign up for the service at the Jott website, you are asked for your name, email, phone number, and zip code. You are then sent an email with a confirmation code. You then call the Jott toll-free number ( 866-JOTT-123) and enter the confirmation code. You are then asked to try your first jot. You are prompted for the name of the recipient. You reply "myself". When you hear the beep, you speak your message or reminder. Jott replies, "Got It". When you hang up Jott automatically transcribes the voice message to text and sends it to your email.

The beauty of this service comes in the many ways you can use it. If you program the Jott number as a speed-dial on your home phone or cell phone, you can quickly and easily call to send yourself reminders. You can use Jott with your cell phone for personal reminders when you are on the road.

You can also add other recipients to your Jott list so you can send email by voice to friends and contacts. If you belong to a club or work with a group of people , just create a group on the Jott website and you can call Jott and send an email to the entire group at once. It's easier than starting up the computer and emailing to the entire group.

At the Jott website you will see a list of all the reminders that you sent yourself and you can keep them in your inbox there or move them to your Jott To Do list. The audio recordings are accessible for playback from the Jott site. You can also cut and paste the text of any audio message to documents or wherever you need them.

You can also easily set up a link to various programs that Jott supports. The list of supported programs is constantly increasing. If you have a blog or use a social website like Twitter, Jott will let you send information there. All you have to do is set up a link on the Jott website. I did that, so now I can use Jott with my free online Google Calendar. The Google Calendar now synchs with Outlook, so I can send a Jott to my Google Calendar and have it show up in both my online calendar and my Outlook calendar. Amazingly, with Jott, I can do all of this instantly without typing.

You can also set Jott up to send text messages via cell phone, but remember that depending on your service contract, your cell phone service may charge you extra for text messages. The text messaging can be very convenient. If you call Jott with an event and texting, it can notify you 15 minutes before the event as an alert.

Jott also has an application that can be added to your Blackberry or iPhone to make Jotting even easier. Right now both of those applications are also free.

The Jott messages are limited to 30 seconds in length, but Jott is planning a premium service that will allow longer messages and other services for an additional fee. It will be interesting to see what they offer in the future, but you can jump right in and use the free edition right now. There are so many different ways to use Jott, I'm sure you will find it a useful addition to your arsenal of daily tools.